Welcome home.”
That’s what our base host, Jenna, said as we entered the Adventures in Mission’s Costa Rican base.
“You can take off your shoes and put down your stuff, because you’re home.”
I almost couldn’t believe it. We were finally doing it, finally living overseas, finally in Costa Rica, the place I’ll call home for the next 3-5 months.
Home has looked different for me in the past 5 months. For about 3 months, I called Gainesville, Georgia home. I lived in a tent, or in a room with 40 other people. I’d spend all day in the middle of nowhere GA, getting trained to walk in my identity in Christ, to live in community, to love others well, to lead others well, to know and share the Gospel, and to live overseas. It was a super sweet and simple life.
Then I came back “home” home, to Ohio, for a month. And it was great, I got to spend the holidays with my family, and catch up with my friends, and sleep in a bed and do laundry in an actual washer and dryer.
But it was different, too. It definitely felt like an “in-between” period. I was grieving leaving my squad so abruptly and anxiously awaiting leaving for Costa Rica at the same time. I slept on a futon downstairs because my brother moved into my room, I hung out with a few friends but realized I already grew apart from others, and I picked up a few shifts at my coffee shop but otherwise had a lot of free time on my hands. I also grew a lot in Georgia and was trying to live that out back home, and I messed up a lot while I was figuring it out.
So it was definitely different than it was before I left, in good and bad ways.
And now I’m calling San José, Costa Rica home. And so far it’s been so easy to do that. My house is adorable, the scenery is breathtaking, and the weather is beautiful. But I know there’s going to be struggles here too. There are going to be lessons to be learned and trails to overcome. There’s going to be people to meet and places to fall in love with and memories to be made. There are going to be ups and downs, and I can’t wait to see how God writes this story. And I hope that it will be a hard goodbye in 3-5 months. I really do. because that means I truly called this place home.
I know it might seem weird to call a place I’ll only be in for a few months home. I used to call my summer church camp my home away from home, even though I only spent a few weeks a year there. I called it home because my heart was there, and it meant something to me. It was never just a “passing through” type of place to me. God wanted to do something there, and I let him. And it made saying goodbye really hard when my camp closed, but I don’t regret letting it mean something to me.
After this, I’m not sure what I will call home next. Maybe another country, maybe the extra room in my house again, maybe a college dorm. All I know is, if I’m calling it home, it’s because God led me there.
